Facebook and TikTok failed to block advertisements with “blatant” misinformation about when and how to vote in the US midterms, as well as about the integrity of the voting process, according to a new report from human rights watchdog Global Witness and the Cybersecurity for Democracy Team (C4D) at New York University.Facebook, meanwhile, approved a “significant number,” according to the report, though noticeably less than TikTok.We call on Facebook and TikTok to do better: stop bad information about elections before it gets to voters.”In response to the report, a spokesperson for Facebook-parent Meta said the tests “were based on a very small sample of ads, and are not representative given the number of political ads we review daily across the world.” The spokesperson added: “Our ads review process has several layers of analysis and detection, both before and after an ad goes live.”A TikTok spokesperson said the platform “is a place for authentic and entertaining content which is why we prohibit and remove election misinformation and paid political advertising from our platform.We value feedback from NGOs, academics, and other experts which helps us continually strengthen our processes and policies.”Google said it has “developed extensive measures to tackle misinformation on our platforms, including false claims about elections and voting procedures.” The company added: “We know how important it is to protect our users from this type of abuse – particularly ahead of major elections like those in the United States and Brazil – and we continue to invest in and improve our enforcement systems to better detect and remove this content.”While limited in scope, the experiment could renew concerns about the steps taken by some of the biggest social platforms to combat not just misinformation about candidates and issues but also seemingly clear cut misinformation about the process of voting itself, with just weeks to go before the midterms.TikTok, whose influence and scrutiny in US politics has grown in recent election cycles, launched an Elections Center in August to “connect people who engage with election content to authoritative information,” including guidance on where and how to vote, and added labels to clearly identify content related to the midterm elections, according to a company blog post."